Курсовая работа: Euphemisms: history, types and examples

· fee for fine

· gaming for gambling

· specific about what one eats for being a picky eater

· intellectually challenged for being mentally retarded

· Before that, mentally retarded for feeble minded

· Before that, feeble minded for halfwit

· adult entertainment, adult material, or erotica for pornography

· to have been paid for 'being fired from or by one's employer'

· to cut excesses (in a budget) for to fire employees

· legal capital for stated capital

· gravitationally challenged for clumsy

· gender reassignment for sex change

· differently abled for disabled

· chemical dependency for drug addiction

· dual-diagnosed for having both mental illness and drug problems

· co-morbidity for simultaneous existence of related mental and physical health issues (a dysphemism, perhaps...)

· gentlemen's club for go-go bar or strip club

· fertility center for infertility center

· mental health center for mental illness center

· it's snowin' down south for your slip is showing

· vertically-challenged for short

· feeling no pain (and dozens of others) for drunk

· your fly is undone for your zip is down

These lists might suggest that most euphemisms are well-known expressions. Often euphemisms can be somewhat situational; what might be used as a euphemism in a conversation between two friends might make no sense to a third person. In this case, the euphemism is being used as a type of innuendo. At other times, the euphemism is common in some circles (such as the medical field) but not others, becoming a type of jargon or, in underworld situations especially, argot. One such example is the line "put him in bed with the captain's daughter" from the popular sea shanty Drunken Sailor. Although this line may sound more like a reward for getting drunk to non-seamen, the phrase "captain's daughter" was actually a euphemism used among sailors for the cat o' nine tails (itself a euphemism for a kind of whip).

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány, in his controversial speech that triggered the 2006 anti-government protests, used a number of vulgar phrases that were translated euphemistically by the media as "screwed up" and "did not bother".

Euphemisms can also be used by governments to rename statutes to use a less offensive expression. For example, in Ontario, Canada, the "Disabled Person Parking Permit" was renamed to the "Accessible Parking Permit" in 2007.^[11]

The word euphemism itself can be used as a euphemism. In the animated short It's Grinch Night (See Dr. Seuss), a child asks to go to the euphemism, where euphemism is being used as a euphemism for outhouse. This euphemistic use of "euphemism" also occurred in the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where a character requests, "Martha, will you show her where we keep the, uh, euphemism?" It is analogous to the 19th-century use of unmentionables for underpants.

Also, lots of euphemisms are used in the improvised television show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. They are used often in the game 'If You Know What I Mean', where players are given a scene and have to use as many obscure clichés and euphemisms as possible.

CONCLUSION